Editorial
Jueteng through STL
OUR provincial police director, Senior Superintendent Rosueto Ricaforte, can keep on denying that the illegal numbers game jueteng is back in Pangasinan. But he should not expect that everyone would readily believe him.
Out in the streets, people know that there is betting going on. As one Sunday PUNCH reader recently wrote in reaction to our news: “How come then that there is still jueteng in (the) 5th district, especially in Rosales, Santo Tomas, Alcala, Bautista, and the town of Bayambang in the 3rd district?”
In one of Ricaforte’s statements last week to the media where he again asserted that jueteng has been contained in Pangasinan, he pointed out that the betting that is taking place is being perpetrated by cabos from neighboring provinces who are collecting bets for small-town lottery (STL) operations where they come from. Now that hints of yet another peril that is, well, incontrovertibly linked to jueteng. STL comes back around in the same dubious network of jueteng. Jueteng is creeping bask under the guise of STL.
The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has in fact temporarily stopped the approval of new applications for STL franchises because it is now evaluating current franchise holders, several of whom reportedly have their hands in jueteng. Retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz previously revealed in a House hearing several names of companies with STL franchises that are also involved in jueteng operations.
PCSO Chairman Margarita Juico, in a congressional hearing last week, admitted that jueteng has been taking away income that the agency could have been earning from STL, it being a legal game. In the same hearing, Senior Supt. Napoleon Taas of PNP’s Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, corroborated this saying the police are having a difficult time arresting jueteng operators because they can’t clearly draw the line between jueteng and STL.
So for all intents and purposes, jueteng IS back in Pangasinan, it’s just going around now by the name STL, operated from outside the province but that’s only because there has yet to be a franchisee hereabouts. In fact, it appears that jueteng never stopped. And with the recent endorsement of STL by the provincial board, corruption through the numbers game will expectedly continue. The existence of STL guarantees that.
There is a one-strike policy ordered by the DILG Sec. Jesse Robredo but this policy apparently is not being pursued by the PNP in Pangasinan. People can only wonder why. What would that make of Gov. Amado Espino’s declaration that jueteng has stopped?
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